Light to Thy Path
by renalan
Summary: Rose as she waits for Roxy and a meteor that will never come, dreaming and acting accordingly. Post scratch. Incest. Genfic. Slight Rose/Dave.


Based on a tumblr headcanon about Rose and Dave preparing for Roxy and Dirk to come and dealing with that not happening.

This was so much fun to write~ Though I will forever be uncertain about my Rose characterization. Do enjoy.

* * *

><p><strong>Light to Thy Path<strong>

Sometimes you have dreams where the world is different, just a bit.

It's a butterfly paradox, a single what-if scenario involving different time lines and all the things that could go horrifically wrong and beautifully right. It's not your world and even then you know that, but there must be some purpose to it all so you study and analyze and learn.

There's something waiting for you and you know it, so you prepare the best you can,

Your name is Rose Lalonde and you are thirteen years old and the future you see when you close your eyes is bright.

You know it's coming.

* * *

><p>You've known all your life almost, the knowledge second nature to you like so many other things you learned while growing up. (That the magic you sought was[n't] real, that human minds could[n't] be used, that it was[n't] just as easy to unravel a person as it was a scarf).<p>

So you stand there, scarf wrapped around your neck to keep out the cold because it's almost winter and as the hours drag on, its grip grows tighter and tighter around your neck like a noose.

She still doesn't come, no matter how long you stand there, skin turning to ice and paling in a way that reminds you of the darkness in your old childhood dreams.

You lean against the wall and think maybe you got it all wrong.

* * *

><p>There is a room in your house, decked out in pinks and lavenders, with a tiny crib, just the perfect measurements for an infant. You've worked on it for months making sure everything is just right because you never do anything without the utmost of care.<p>

And when you come home, tired and aching, you don't trash it in a drunken stupor, you don't cry, you don't write about it in your journals in tired violet.

You just close your eyes and dream.

(But you think about it.)

* * *

><p>It doesn't stop you, not really, because where would you have gotten if such a little thing could set you back. Instead you turn on the news and listen for news about the sky falling down<p>

But there's nothing, so you keep waiting.

Nearly five months later you visit Washington and watch as a joke shop is torn to ashes. There are people screaming inside, but you don't care because she's still not here.

She's still not yours.

(You close the door to the nursery and don't open it.)

* * *

><p>You write a book for her of all the things you've seen and all the things you hope you'll never have to, carefully penned out in purple ink inside one of your many journals. It tells stories of your fairy tale wizards and unwinnable games and how even those can be beaten.<p>

It doesn't surprise you when your book sells and sells and sells, the best seller of a decade, because you're sure that even the lowest among them might have some modicum of taste.

The dedication of your first and subsequent novels only reads one thing and it stumps your fans when they try to come up with explanations. A lover perhaps, or a close friend, they guess, but you never tell them the truth. It's just two simple words written on countless copies, even though you have always been know for your loquaciousness.

__For Roxy__ .

(You hope she understands that what you really mean is __I Love You__.)

* * *

><p>When your book gets turned into a movie, you travel to Hollywood to make sure they get it right. You wrote the script yourself, because since when could you trust other people to do your job, it seems almost careless.<p>

The director they've hired is supposedly a popular one, who makes even the worst of garbage seem appealing. You have watched his films of course, though you simply can not find the appeal in such obviously juvenile antics which only serve as an outlet for pent up psychological trauma and father issues. Still, they are familiar to you in the same way that the colour of her eyes might be and you don't throw them away.

He looks like you and that is the first thing you think when you see him in person, shades covering his eyes even though you know the shade by heart. Or at least you think you do. Perhaps you have always been too trusting of the things your mind tells you.

Still, you invite him out for a drink and, as the night goes on, you find yourself falling just a tiny bit because it has been a long, long time since anyone has been able to keep up with you and maybe that's just what you need.

When you kiss him he tastes like too sweet ironic drinks and stale doritos and you think that's fine.

You grope him against the door to his apartment, hot and heavy, ripping the buttons off of his dress shirt as he tongues your pulse point, nearly vicious against your neck. You do it hard and fast, straddling him right there in the living room because screw being careful when you need this. It's not your first time, not by a long shot, but you think it's the first that's ever actually mattered.

He lights up a cigarette in the afterglow and you lean away from him, only now taking in the rest of the apartment and the door that is just ever so slightly a jar like he couldn't bear to close it.

There's an empty cradle in there and the scene is almost too familiar.

You don't ask and he doesn't answer, but there is a note on the door that says __dirks room __in firey font and you know.

The next time you sleep together is slower and you're not sure who is holding whom.

When you fly back you know your project is in good hands.

* * *

><p>The world has always been apt to cease existence with a miniscule utterance rather than an expectedly grand cacophony and so goes your life with it.<p>

You grow old and older still until you stop trying to count your age, even though you know it instinctively (fourty three, fourty four, fourty five.) and instead measure your worth in the things you accomplish over the years.

You build a lab in the basement (for her when she will need it), take an hour each week just to watch the stars (always the same), spend a day just eating cake (but never Betty Crocker), watch horrible movies (the ones you used to say you hated and still do), look in pet shop windows for dogs every time you pass by (but none of them are ever right).

And with each thing you do the world feels more and more (less and less) like home.

Your name is Rose Lalonde and you used to dream of meteors and ectobiology and science that doesn't exist. You used to dream of happy things, of horrible moments, of taking life into your own hands.

Your name is Rose Lalonde and sometimes you don't dream at all.


End file.
